The Anasazi settlements at Chaco Canyon were built

[RonPurewal]

John has bought a new car, a newest model of company ABC that costs XXXX dollars.

Thank you.

Ironically, this sentence runs afoul of the difference between modifiers that you were describing above.

If you write "...the newest model that costs $20,000", you're implying that there are multiple models sold at that price, and that John is buying the newest of those models (which may be many years old, if the company has not sold a model at that price for a while).

If you mean to say that he purchased the newest model made by the company -- which happens to cost $xxxx -- then you'd need to use "which" (after a comma), not "that".

Also, "newest" presumably describes a single model, so you'd want "the" here, not "a". (GMAC doesn't test a/an/the, so you don't need to worry about this for the test.)

[manhhiep2509]

John has bought a new car, a newest model of company ABC that costs XXXX dollars.

Thank you.

Ironically, this sentence runs afoul of the difference between modifiers that you were describing above.

If you write "...the newest model that costs $20,000", you're implying that there are multiple models sold at that price, and that John is buying the newest of those models (which may be many years old, if the company has not sold a model at that price for a while).

If you mean to say that he purchased the newest model made by the company -- which happens to cost $xxxx -- then you'd need to use "which" (after a comma), not "that".

Also, "newest" presumably describes a single model, so you'd want "the" here, not "a". (GMAC doesn't test a/an/the, so you don't need to worry about this for the test.)

Thank Ron.

does the phrase "...the newest model that costs $20,000" possibly imply that there are multiple cars of the newest model, but John bought the car that costs $20,000, a different price from the price of the other cars of the model?

[RonPurewal]

does the phrase "...the newest model that costs $20,000" possibly imply that there are multiple cars of the newest model, but John bought the car that costs $20,000, a different price from the price of the other cars of the model?

"The newest model" can't refer to more than one model.

[JIYUS618]

Ron,
1. as you say:
choice b is correct: it uses a nonessential modifier set off by commas ('of up to 600 rooms each'), which, if eliminated, yields the intact and legitimate sentence ...carefully engineered structures, connected by... (with another nonessential modifier).

while in this situation:
In the past several years, astronomers have detected more than 80 massive planets, most of them as large or larger than Jupiter, which circle other stars.
C.most of them at least as large as Jupiter, circling
the highlight phrase is a nonessential modifier set off by commas,if eliminated,the rest is "....massive planets circling" .while in the precede sentence,the rest,if eliminated, of the sentence is"...carefully engineered structures connected by..."(with essential modifier)
is this right?I'm not sure.

2.In choice CDE
Is this the wrong structure you have ever said:
of+Noun+of+Noun
(to+Noun+to+Noun...)

3.In choice D
of more than...and with... ,why "of" and "with" cannot be parallel,both of them are preposition.
e.g,The girl who...and whose....
"who" and "whose" are parallel.

If I were wrong,pls tell me.
Thanks in advance.

[JIYUS618]

#2 is wrong, because it suggests that "her letter" is one of the organization's goals.
This kind of modifier should be adjacent to whatever it is describing. Like "which".

As you said
e.g,In the fourth lane is Tony Cardinale, the son of Vinny and Alessandra Cardinale, two former Olympic swimmers from Italy.

An appositive have to adjacent to the noun that it refers,
"the son of Vinny and Alessandra Cardinale" is the appositive to "Tony Cardinale" and to "two former Olympic swimmers"
but the preposition structure "NOUN+OF+NOUN",we don't know which noun the appositive refers until we know the meaning of the sentence.
So,which component(NOUN) should the appositive refers depend on the situation??
Is it right??
Thanks in advance.

[RonPurewal]

Ron,
1. as you say:
choice b is correct: it uses a nonessential modifier set off by commas ('of up to 600 rooms each'), which, if eliminated, yields the intact and legitimate sentence ...carefully engineered structures, connected by... (with another nonessential modifier).

while in this situation:
In the past several years, astronomers have detected more than 80 massive planets, most of them as large or larger than Jupiter, which circle other stars.
C.most of them at least as large as Jupiter, circling
the highlight phrase is a nonessential modifier set off by commas,if eliminated,the rest is "....massive planets circling" .while in the precede sentence,the rest,if eliminated, of the sentence is"...carefully engineered structures connected by..."(with essential modifier)
is this right?I'm not sure.

These two sentences work the same way, yes. (I don't remember the terminology; I probably Googled it before writing that post.)

The "essential"/"nonessential" difference is not tested on the GMAT.
The GMAT does not test any issues of punctuation.

[RonPurewal]

2.In choice CDE
Is this the wrong structure you have ever said:
of+Noun+of+Noun
(to+Noun+to+Noun...)

Sorry, I don't understand the red part.

[RonPurewal]

3.In choice D
of more than...and with... ,why "of" and "with" cannot be parallel,both of them are preposition.
e.g,The girl who...and whose....
"who" and "whose" are parallel.

That's not the problem. The problem is that "each" doesn't make any sense in choice D.
The sentence should say that each structure had hundreds of rooms"”a message that is indeed conveyed by the correct answer ("hundreds of rooms each").

Choice D says "each connected by a system of roads". This would only be true if "each ___ was connected by a system of roads", for some "___" that is a noun.
There's no "___" that makes sense here. (It's nonsense to say "each structure was connected by a system of roads""”that would mean that each individual structure had its own system of roads!)

[JIYUS618]

2.In choice CDE
Is this the wrong structure you have ever said:
of+Noun+of+Noun
(to+Noun+to+Noun...)

Sorry, I don't understand the red part.

Sorry,I mean,you have ever said that:
this two structure always are avoid by GMAC?
so this rule work here?

[JIYUS618]

3.In choice D
of more than...and with... ,why "of" and "with" cannot be parallel,both of them are preposition.
e.g,The girl who...and whose....
"who" and "whose" are parallel.

That's not the problem. The problem is that "each" doesn't make any sense in choice D.
The sentence should say that each structure had hundreds of rooms"”a message that is indeed conveyed by the correct answer ("hundreds of rooms each").

Choice D says "each connected by a system of roads". This would only be true if "each ___ was connected by a system of roads", for some "___" that is a noun.
There's no "___" that makes sense here. (It's nonsense to say "each structure was connected by a system of roads""”that would mean that each individual structure had its own system of roads!)

Oh,thank you very much!!
And can I eliminate D because "each" may indicate either "room" or "structure"?As a non native speaker,it's a little hard for me to judge from literal meaning.
If not ,I will obey literal meaning
Thanks in advance.

[RonPurewal]

As I tried to explain above, there is no noun that makes sense for "each" in choice D.
So, there's no point in trying to assign it to any particular noun"”it doesn't reasonably apply to any noun.

[TingP565]

choice d:
- 'scale of' doesn't make sense
- the use of AND sets up ostensible parallelism, but the two structures given aren't parallel (one starts with of and the other with with

Hi Ron,
While the cost of running nuclear plants is about the same as for other types of power plants, the fixed costs that stem from building nuclear plants make the electricity they generate more expensive.

This is a correct sentence from prep/OG13th, in this sentence, "the cost of" seems to parallel to "(the cost) for"

I also remember you said not all parallel structures have perfectly matching components,
e.g..
They argue just as frequently and about the same topies as the couple living next door to them.

So, my question is why the two structures given are not parallel?

Thanks in advance

[RonPurewal]

well, i suppose there’s nothing stopping you from randomly labeling those structures as “imperfectly parallel”.

however, that label does nothing to rectify the fact that choice D has a nonsense meaning, as discussed earlier in the thread.

[RonPurewal]

actually, there are two different kinds of nonsense in choice D.

of those two issues, the one that’s easier to ese (for me, at least) results from the placement of “each”.
the sentence SHOULD say that the structures had “up to 75 rooms each”.
in choice D, though, “each” comes after the comma, thus implying that each individual structure was “connected by roads”. that’s impossible, of course; an individual structure can’t be “connected by roads”.

if that’s not clear, here’s an analogy:
intricately beaded jackets, worth as much as $100,000 each, worn by three of the performers
—> each jacket is individually valued as high as $100,000. most likely, each of the three performers is wearing a different jacket.

vs.
intricately beaded jackets, worth as much as $100,000, each worn by three of the performers
—> here, there are three copies of each individual jacket. (this time, we don’t know how many jackets there are, and it’s also not quite clear whether the $100,000 figure represents $100,000 per jacket or $100,000 in aggregate. not the point, though— the point is to see what “each” does.)

in this analogy, both versions make some sort of sense. but, if you compare choice D to the second version, you’ll see why choice D doesn’t work.

(this is basically a reprise of certain points that have already been made above— but i don’t think this sort of analogy was provided earlier.)

[RonPurewal]

the other piece of nonsense is “with”, whose use is inappropriate here for the same reason discussed at this link:
https://www.manhattanprep.com/gmat/foru ... ml#p114094

interestingly, that sentence is also about a (different) tribe from the desert southwest.

(and, yes, you'll have to click a link at that link.)